2.10 Importing

This chapter covers the following topics:

Origin provides a collection of X-Functions for importing data from various file formats such as ASCII, CSV, Excel, National Instruments DIAdem, pCLAMP, and many others. The X-Function for each file format provides options relevant to that format in addition to common settings such as assigning the name of the import file to the book or sheet name.

All X-Functions pertaining to importing have names that start with the letters imp. The table below provides a listing of these X-Functions. As with all X-Functions, help-file information is available at Script or Command line by entering the name of the X-Function with the -h option. For instance: entering impasc -h in the Script window will display the help file immediately below the command.

Name Brief Description
impASC Import ASCII file/files
impBin2d Import binary 2d array file
impCSV Import csv file
impDT Import Data Translation Version 1.0 files
impEP Import EarthProbe (EPA) file. Now only EPA file is supported for EarthProbe data.
impExcel Import Microsoft Excel 97-2007 files
impFamos Import Famos Version 2 files
impFile Import file with pre-defined filter.
impHEKA Import HEKA (dat) files
impIgorPro Import WaveMetrics IgorPro (pxp, ibw) files
impImage Import a graphics file
impinfo Read information related to import files.
impJCAMP Import JCAMP-DX Version 6 files
impJNB Import SigmaPlot (JNB) file. It supports version lower than SigmaPlot 8.0.
impKG Import KaleidaGraph file
impMatlab Import Matlab files
impMDF Import ETAS INCA MDF (DAT, MDF) files. It supports INCA 5.4 (file version 3.0).
impMNTB Import Minitab file (MTW) or project (MPJ). It supports the version prior to Minitab 13.
impNetCDF Import netCDF file. It supports the file version lower than 3.1.
impNIDIAdem Import National Instruments DIAdem 10.0 dat files
impNITDM Import National Instruments TDM and TDMS files(TDMS does not support data/time format)
impODQ Import *.ODQ files.
imppClamp Import pCLAMP file. It supports pClamp 9 (ABF 1.8 file format) and pClamp 10 (ABF 2.0 file format).
impSIE Import nCode Somat SIE 0.92 file
impSPC Import Thermo File
impSPE Import Princeton Instruments (SPE) file. It supports the version prior to 2.5.
impWav Import waveform audio file
reimport Re-import current file

You can write your own import routines in the form of X-Functions as well. If the name of a user-created X-Function begins with imp and it is placed in the \X-Functions\Import and Export subfolder of the EXE, UFF or Group paths, then such functions will appear in the File|Import menu.

The following sections give examples of script usage of these functions for importing data, graphs, and images.